- Back in the mid-1950s US President Dwight Eisenhower
used to travel to the Fraser River in Colorado to spend his summers fishing
for trout. He was such a regular visitor and an avid fisherman typically
casting a Red Quill fly that the Byers Peak Ranch where he used to stay
became known as the Western White House.
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- But now the Fraser River on which the President spent
his afternoons fishing the cold, clear waters is imperiled like never before.
Having long been plundered by the regional water board, the 30 mile stream
was yesterday named in a report as one of the 10 most threatened rivers
in the US.
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- "For years the Denver Water Board has siphoned 65
per cent of the Fraser River's water and piped it across the mountains
to fuel runaway development," said the report by AmericanRivers.Org,
a Washington-based environmental campaign group. "Now it plans to
take most of the rest."
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- The 10 rivers highlighted by the group are spread across
the US. While several are located in states known for their industry, such
as Ohio, others are in the west and in the Rockies. The Fraser River forms
in the snowfields of the nation's continental divide and flows 30 miles
to the north and west before it joins the Colorado River, itself little
more than a mountain stream at that stage.
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- The threat to the river is from over-extraction. In the
years since President Eisenhower stayed in a lodge at the ranch overlooking
the small town of Fraser, the Denver Water Board has been taking 65 per
cent of the river's flow to meet the demands of burgeoning development
in an area on the east of the mountains known as the Front Range. Now the
board, the largest utility in the state, is to seek permission to extract
up to 85 per cent of the river's flow.
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- Adam Cwiklin, a local councillor from Fraser, where people
have launched a project to collect photographs, documents and oral histories
relating to Eisenhower's visits, said the extraction was slowly killing
the river. He said: "This is called the Fraser River Valley and there
are several towns that depend on the river. Soon it may be that we no longer
have a river, just a dry riverbed."
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- Over-extraction is just one of the problems affecting
America's waterways. Yesterday's report highlighted a number of threats
including pollution from development and factory farming, as well as the
building of dams and reservoirs. One of the biggest problems was the release
of untreated sewage. Last year more than 860bn gallons of untreated sewage
was poured into US rivers, making millions of people ill and causing widespread
environmental damage. At the same time the Bush administration is planning
to lower clean water standards.
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- "All across America, rivers link one town's toilets
to the next town's faucets," said Rebecca Wodder, president of AmericanRivers.Org.
"And when it rains, sewage pours into those rivers, billions of gallons
every year.
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- "Kids in America should be able to enjoy their neighbourhood
creeks and rivers without playmates like salmonella, hepatitis and dysentery."
The most threatened river identified was the Susquehanna, which starts
in upstate New York, makes its way through Pennsylvania and then enters
the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the US and another severely
polluted body of water.
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- The source of the river is close to Cooperstown, and
from there it flows 444 miles before broadening into a vast tidal estuary
at Havre de Grace in Maryland. It drains an area of 27,510 square miles
more than any other river on the Atlantic coast.
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- But the Susquehanna is a hard-working river. On its journey
to the Chesapeake it passes through several industrial cities, four hydro-electric
dams have blocked its flow and a century of coal mining has left a legacy
of acid pollution. The infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant, where
a reactor suffered a partial core-meltdown in March 1979, is situated along
the river just south of Harrisburg.
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- "Throughout the river's watershed, aging sewer systems
discharge enormous volumes of raw or poorly treated sewage, which eventually
flow into the Chesapeake," said the report. "Unless local, state
and federal lawmakers invest in clean-up and prevention, the Susquehanna
will remain among the nation's dirtiest rivers." In all the cases,
environmental protection is threatened by industrial and residential development.
But campaigners believe Congress can help by refusing to enact Bush administration
plans to cut clean water measures by US$500m in the next year. Such a reduction
would take federal assistance to an all-time low.
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- Ten Most Endangered Waterways
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- * Santee river Enormous hydropower dam is draining South
Carolina's "forgotten river." State regulators must stop it drying
out completely.
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- * Little Miami river Risks being pumped full of waste
and chemicals from proposed sewage plants and local construction work.
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- * Tuolumne river San Francisco authorities plan a pipeline
that could increase the water it drains from the Tuolumne by 70 per cent.
Salmon and steel industries and nature resorts are at risk.
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- * Price river Authorities in Central Utah are under pressure
to build a new dam and reservoir to divert water from Price River communities
and pipe it to others.
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- * Santa Clara river Southern California's developers
are planning on transforming the land surrounding its last significant
river into shopping malls and plush new homes.
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- * Susquehanna river Enormous volumes of raw sewage discharged
into the river threaten Chesapeake Bay, where the river meets the sea.
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- * McCrystal creek The New Mexico creek and the surrounding
mountain area, Valle Vidal, face the prospect of intrusive coal bed methane
drilling.
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- * Fraser river The Denver Water Board has been siphoning
off 65 per cent of the river's water for years, but it plans to take even
more - leaving it it with almost nothing but effluent from local sewage
plants.
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- * Skykomish river Runaway development threatens to foul
the clear waters of the Skykomish river, known for its rural quality of
life.
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- * Roan creek Extensive dairy farming could mean manure
sullying the creek.
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- ©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/
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